Friday, 26 March 2010

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

2009
Dirs. Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu

When Keiko (Eri Otoguro) plummets to her death after arguing with vampiric love-rival Monami (Yukie Kawamura), her father turns all ‘Dr Frankenstein’ and resurrects her as part of a fiendish experiment. Bolting together a new body for her, he enables his daughter to return from the dead as Frankenstein Girl. The stage is now set for the most ludicrous and elaborate showdown since Godzilla bitch-slapped Megalon.

Part soap-opera, part monster movie mash-up, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is highly imaginative, utterly bonkers and boasts the most wicked sense of humour since The Evil Dead. Amongst various scenes of blood-splattered mayhem, contemporary Japanese pop-culture is mined for twisted laughs by the director who brought us Tokyo Gore Police. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is as over-the-top, uber-kitsch and gorily twisted as you'd expect from a film with this title. Perhaps most surprising of all, is the fact that it ain't half bad!

This is the first film I've seen from that newly emerging sub-genre of insanely violent and splattery Asian films. I actually really liked it! It kept getting more outrageous as it progressed - all the way to the uber-OTT finale. Such good fun.

Fine review as always, James! The new wave of Japanese gore/exploitation/horror films are a lot of fun, but can get a little old after a while. I do quite enjoy them though and VGvFG looks super wild and entertaining. Your review is positive enough to where I don't think the film will wear out its welcome too fast.

Cheers Matt. I'm still a relative new-comer to this new wave of Japanese gore/exploitation/horror flicks. I did really like this one though. A lot of fun - just completely bonkers in places. I might have to go and check out Tokyo Gore Police now. ;o)

Behind the Couch is a term used as a humorous metaphor to describe the actions that a state of fear may drive someone to: for example, a young child hiding 'behind the couch' when watching a scary film or TV show. Its use generally evokes a feeling of nostalgia: safe fear in a domestic setting.

In the case of this blog, it also denotes the reviewer hiding behind the couch in shame, due to the huge amount of trashy horror films he watches...

'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.'

H.P. Lovecraft

'Like one, that on a lonesome roadDoth walk in fear and dread,And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.'

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

'A shudder through the silence creptAnd death athwart the noonlight swept…Graves closed round my path of life,The beautiful had fled;Pale shadows wandered by my side,And whispered of the dead.'

Sarah Helen Whitman

'We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.'

Stephen King

'Human beings are the only living creatures endowed with a full awareness of their own mortality.'

Alex Lickerman, Buddhist Physician

'A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.'